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A professor of clinical anatomy has helped to identify two bronze sculptures as the work of Michelangelo, after spotting that their big toes bore the hallmarks of the Renaissance master.

Prof Peter Abrahams was invited by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to assess the sculptures in an attempt to establish who made them. His research has helped to confirm them as the only known Michelangelo bronzes in existence.

“Being an observant person, both as a doctor and a scientist, I noticed that the toes on the bronzes were a bit odd,” he said.

“I then went and had a look at all the toes that I could find anywhere in Michelangelo’s oeuvre. Out of 40 toes, all except for two fitted this brief: they had a short big toe and a long second toe, and the big toe goes outwards - it looks like someone is wearing a flip-flop in between the toes.

“In the Sistine Chapel, David, Moses, they all have the same toes. There are certain traits that shine through in an artist’s work.”

Prof Abrahams, who combines his work at Warwick Medical School with a keen interest in art history, says he can now instantly tell a real Michelangelo foot from a fake.

The Michelangelo toe is abducted - facing away from the other toes to leave a noticeable gapCredit:
Dylan Martinez/Reuters

He also found other physical clues to link the bronzes to Michelangelo. The two men - one young, one older and bearded - have rippled torsos. “We all know a six-pack, but these guys actually have an eight-pack,” he said, something seen in very few people. “I found two statues and five Michelangelo drawings that have that same, rare anomaly, which tells me that the model he used for those was the same model he used for these bronzes.

“They look slightly on steroids, slightly pumped up, like bodybuilders. But if you were a guy lifting masonry stone you would have very developed muscles.”

Another indicator was the presence of the sartorius muscle in the legs. The muscle is not outwardly visible, leading Prof Abrahams to conclude that only an artist who had dissected bodies would know of its existence.

When Prof Abrahams was told that the bronzes likely dated to the early 1500s, he was surprised. “The first anatomy textbook was written in 1543 - we’re talking a generation later. So whoever made these beautiful bronzes had actually seen under the skin.”

He narrowed down to less than a dozen a list of artists known to have dissected bodies, and concluded that their work did not match the bronzes.

Another factor was the pubic hair. Almost every male classical and Renaissance sculpture has pubic hair arranged “in a triangle going down towards the genitalia”, he explained. In Michelangelo’s work, “the triangle goes up towards the umbilicus, not the other way around”.

The 'eight-pack' is another hallmark of Michelangelo sculpture, according to Prof AbrahamsCredit:
Michael Jones

Prof Abrahamson’s evidence is featured in a new book, Michelangelo: Sculptor in Bronze, which draws together the work of various experts.

The bronzes were first recorded as being the work of Michelangelo in 1878, when they were owned by the Rothschild family, but the attribution was later in doubt. They last changed hands at Sotheby’s in 2002 for £1.65 million, when they were bought by a private collector, and remain known as the 'Rothschild bronzes'.

A team from Cambridge University and the Fitzwilliam reattributed them to Michelangelo in 2015 and invited experts from various disciplines to contribute further research, which has now confirmed their findings.

They commissioned technical analysis at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam which found that the bronzes date from the early 1500s.

The book also details 30 little-known letters from Michelangelo to his family, written in 1506-08, in which he writes about working in bronze. He is known to have made three major bronze sculptures, none of which survive.

Dr Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, described the research as a “game-changer”. He said: “It provides a completely new - and indeed long overdue - interdisciplinary approach to Michelangelo studies.

“It proves what can be achieved when there is genuine collaboration between internationally-regarded experts in fields as diverse as art history, conservation science, anatomy and technical archaeology.”